Today's post is shared from http://ncworkcompjournal.com/
A U.S. federal judge recently ruled that a ride-sharing service must face a lawsuit alleging that the company has been pocketing tips meant for the drivers (Detroit Free Press, September 19, 2014). Uber Technologies is a smartphone-summoned car service based in San Francisco that has been charging a 20% surcharge on rides. Uber was founded in 2009 and is currently in 35 countries and more than 100 cities. It is valued at $18.2 billion and is the most valued ventured-back company in the world.
Filed in January, the class-action suit alleges that Uber has been keeping a “substantial portion” of the gratuity as additional revenue rather than sharing with its drivers. This lawsuit also accuses the company of misleading customers about the true cost of its service. The complaint characterizes Uber’s practice as unfair and deceptive because Uber keeps most of the surcharge and it’s not a gratuity.
Uber, Lyft and other car-booking companies have been facing a growing number of legal challenges. In Chicago, cab drivers sued the city claiming that these smartphone-summoned services are not subject to the same regulations governing conventional taxi companies. In Connecticut, Uber and Lyft have also been accused of racketeering by taxi and livery operators who accuse the companies of preying on established businesses and cutting legal corners by partnering with affiliated drivers instead of owning cars. That way, these companies claim they are different from taxi dispatchers and shouldn’t be forced to comply with existing regulations, such as driver background checks and liability insurance.
Showing posts with label Dallas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dallas. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Payroll Data Shows a Lag in Wages, Not Just Hiring
For the more than 10 million Americans who are out of work, finding a job is hard. For the 145 million or so who are employed, getting a raise is even harder.
The government said on Friday that employers added 113,000 jobs in January, the second straight month of anemic growth, despite some signs of strength in the broader economy. The unemployment rate inched down in January to 6.6 percent, the lowest level since October 2008, from 6.7 percent in December.
But the report also made plain what many Americans feel in their bones: Wages are stuck, and barely rose at all in 2013. They were up 1.9 percent last year, or a mere 0.4 percent after accounting for inflation. Not only was that increase even smaller than the one recorded in 2012, it was half the normal rate of wage gains in the two decades before the last recession.
The stagnation helps explain why many people feel apprehensive even though the economy grew at a robust pace in the second half of 2013, corporate profits rose, the stock market boomed and the housing market continued to gain ground. The issue cuts across the American work force. In fact, white-collar workers did a bit worse than blue-collar workers last year in terms of wage growth.
“People are running in place in terms of their living standards,” said Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics at Bank of America Merrill...
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Sunday, November 24, 2013
Doctors Say Heart Drug Raised Risk of an Attack
Cardiologists have accused a small drug company of withholding data from a clinical trial showing that the company’s drug, meant to reduce the risk of heart attacks, increased the risk instead.
The cardiologists said that the company, Anthera Pharmaceuticals, did not turn over data to academic investigators, as it was required to do, for more than a year.
“Despite a contract that required transfer to the academic authors, the company stonewalled every attempt to acquire the data,” Dr. Steven Nissen, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, said in an email on Tuesday.
Dr. Nissen was the senior author of a report on the data that was published online Monday by The Journal of the American Medical Association and presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Dallas. In unveiling the results there, the lead investigator, Dr. Stephen Nicholls, publicly admonished the company.
Dr. Colin Hislop, the chief medical officer at Anthera, denied the accusations, saying it simply took time to gather and organize the data. “I don’t think the timeline was particularly protracted, nor were we being difficult,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
Studies and lawsuits have shown that many clinical trial results, particularly negative ones, are not published. Critics say that hampers medical practice and violates an obligation to patients, who try experimental treatments in part to advance knowledge.
“We think that when you enter...
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Monday, October 28, 2013
NTSB says Texas Spirit Air flight had "uncontained" failure
A Spirit Airlines plane at Dallas-Forth Worth Airport on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013.
Plane engine explodes, smoke forces plane to turn backThe official says it was an "uncontained" failure. That means broken pieces and parts of the engine escaped the outer engine housing, an unusual and especially serious occurrence.The official spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly. Aircraft engines are designed to contain any broken pieces within the engine during a failure. Passengers aboard the Airbus A319 on Tuesday say they heard an explosion and saw flames come up the side of the plane, lighting up the interior. They reported that smoke filled the cabin. Passenger Casey Rogers described his experience in a phone call with CBS station KTVT in Dallas: "I saw the engine blow up on the outside of the plane, fire and all that. I'm thinking to myself, I see this on the movies. I'm usually on my couch eating popcorn. This never happened to me. And here I am 25,000 feet above the ground and this is happening to me." Rogers said the crew was professional and handled the situation well. Spirit spokeswoman Misty Pinson says no one on Flight 165 was injured. |
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